1. OBJECTIVES AND THE NEED FOR THIS ASSISTANCE Cancer is a continuing drain on our nation`s human and economic resources. More than 442,000 Americans die of cancer each year. The direct costs of cancer for medical care are estimated to be a staggering $21 billion a year. The indirect costs of cancer, such as lost productivity, are beyond calculation. Cancer is also a major public health problem in New York State. More than 75,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed among New York State residents each year. Approximately one in four New York State citizens will develop cancer in their lifetime. Malignant neoplasms are the second leading cause of mortality with 38,000 cancer related deaths registered in 1985. Thus, cancer is responsible for one in five death in New York State. The National Cancer Institute has set a goal of a 50% reduction in the cancer mortality rate by the year 2000. In order achieve this goal, the New york State Department of Health is developing an integrated cancer control program which focuses on prevention, early detection, and the provision of timely and appropriate treatment. An essential component of this program is the development of a comprehensive approach to maximizing public and practitioner awareness of those intervention techniques which are known to reduce the risk of premature death due to cancer. In order to develop an integrated cancer prevention plan and have the capacity for the monitoring the degree to which these objectives are achieved, the New York State Department of Health is developing a comprehensive approach to utilizing existing data bases. The specific objectives of this project will be to: (a) Identify and evaluate data bases which are potentially useful for cancer control planning; (b) Develop an analysis matrix designed to capture the key elements from each data set which are most relevant and critical to effective cancer control planning; (c) Integrate the analysis phase of the project into a broader process of problem identification, intervention selection and prioritization; (d) select and prioritize the intervention strategies to be initiated and evaluated during years 2-5 of the project; (e) Develop a program for informing legislators of required information which utilizes cancer profiles (e.g. incidence and mortality rates, risk factor prevalence rates, etc.) for local areas (e.g. counties, elections districts); (f) Develop system evaluation plans for the intervention strategies selected.